Shut Down!

There was a discussion at work today about the war in Iraq. One of the guys suggested that the reason for the war was not terrorism, but rather that America wants to steal Iraq's oil. This was too good an opportunity for me to resist. I said, "Then why are the Americans allowing a provisional government and why are they encouraging the Iraqis to write a constitution? Furthermore, why didn't the Americans invade Saudi Arabia, which has 10 times the oil reserves that Iraq does?" The response was a feeble and uncertain, "Well maybe it's because the Iraqis were weaker." So I pointed out that Iraq had 20 times the military power of Saudi Arabia, and that most Americans would be quite happy to invade Saudi Arabia given how many of the Sept 11th hijackers were Saudi citizens. Shut down! Since there was no response I said, "So you must acknowledge the superior logic of my position!" He didn't, but my point was made. You can question is invading Iraq was right, and you can question whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but let's not have any nonsense about this being an attempt to steal oil!